


Your Mistakes Do Not Define You

by CK_Artille



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CK_Artille/pseuds/CK_Artille
Summary: A mission in Afghanistan results in unexpected losses and gains.Takes place a few months before the events of MGSV.
Kudos: 5





	Your Mistakes Do Not Define You

The bodies were an unsolvable problem.

They lay wrapped in blankets, seeping their last into dark wool. Two men who had left Mother Base that morning walking and talking. Two men who were now limp and cooling. Two of a few, now even less, their removal from life adding to the worst of all things right now: additional units of weight to manage.

Ocelot stood a distance away. He’d retreated to the shadows of a rocky outcropping at the top of the ridge. The day was bad. They were lucky only two had been lost. The slog out of Shago had been made of bullets parting their hair and thighs burning from moving in a constant crouch. At first they’d only needed to manage their objective, the equipment crate, two men hustling fore and aft. Careful going due to the sensitive instrumentation inside, every second spent struggling against the weight one more space a sniper’s bullet could occupy. He’d done what he could to keep fire off them during their escape, darting from point to point, commandeered sniper rifle jamming just as often as it fired. Now, it lay where he’d left it in the gulley, a black slash half-covered by sand. His small team stepped around it as if it were bad luck. Ocelot supposed it was.

Manta was first to drop. He’d been on point and had gone down on one knee, half his guts following shortly before the crack of the shot reached their ears. When Ocelot slithered down out of cover and pressed his hands over the gaping wound in Manta’s belly, the dying man’s hiss told him everything.

Those to blame don’t get to help.

Ocelot had retreated then, bloody hands slipping along the rifle. By the time they’d sequestered in the gulley, the rifle was sticky with Manta and jammed beyond use. The Russians, numbers halved by Ocelot’s sharp eye, lost interest. They flickered into the dust, boxy curses trailing after them.

Lucky. But what a mess.

Below him, their camp rambled along in a hastily constructed sentence. Wounded as nouns, the healthy as verbs. Rucksacks and discarded gear random punctuation. The equipment crate was the subject, rendered into an afterthought by the bodies lying in parenthesis around it.The whole thing a testament to a failure they couldn’t afford.

Diamond Dogs was still so small. One lonely platform in the middle of the sea, a trio of helicopters, a few dozen men. The loss of two was massive. Ocelot did the math in his head: eight percent of total staff, twenty-nine of combat, twenty-one this total team.

Miller would be _frothing_ when they returned.

Nothing unusual there, in and of itself. Miller wouldn’t be Miller if he wasn’t nursing some poorly-managed anger at any given time. Ocelot grimaced, dread deepening the worry lines at the corners of his mouth. He’d made it a point of pride that his group garnered no negative attention from the CO. Miller’s spluttering diatribes were for hapless grunts in Base Development, not his well-trained unit. 

But this mission’s unit hadn’t been his. It was all Miller’s, and Miller wasn’t even here to help with mop up.

With a sigh, Ocelot ran a finger between his sunburned neck and sodden scarf. Tomorrow, when the chopper touched skids, and the bodies were hauled out, the shouting would set the seagulls roosting at the top of the platform into flight.

Damn it. 

The very idea of enduring Miller’s wrath made him pause. Could he simply refuse to disembark from the chopper, whisper a few problem-solving promises to the pilot, and fly straight on to Cyprus? Let them all cool out while he checked up on the Boss. The hospital there, with its tidy halls and circumspect staff, would be just what he needed. No comms, no paperwork, no judgmental, sneering colleague. Just Snake, dozing two layers below consciousness, a great leviathan slowly surfacing. The doctors said he was a few weeks yet from breach. Sometimes Snake’s eyelids would twitch when Ocelot spoke his name. It would be fine to sit at the bedside and watch for twitches while the monotonous beep of the machines lulled Ocelot into that distant state in which he always did his best thinking.

He toed over a rock. The scorpion underneath it accused him with tiny claws.

How _had_ they missed that extra unit sequestered at Shago? Too many shadows on the satellite feed? A misread of the initial analysis? Or just plain shoddy work? It hadn’t been Ocelot’s first or even second choice to go out, but Miller had a client with a fat wallet on the line and a bunch of promises he needed to keep. Ocelot’s recommendation to wait until they completed the Fulton project bounced off Miller’s silver shades, as effective as a mortar against the angled hide of a tank. _Fuck the Fulton project, Major. Take this team and go. All that Intel equipment you’re requisitioning isn’t free._

So he’d gone, and it had cost them. Dear.

He adjusted his scarf again. The salted fabric crunched against his raw skin. 

Down below, the camp sentence was improving. The men had rewritten it into a bland statement about how soldiers can organize after a disaster.Quick strike shelters were up, a cook fire sent a thread of white into the air. Osprey was sorting ammo while Hyena circulated, touching a shoulder here, providing a word there. Their movements were slow, sodden. Done up. An orange flash caught his attention: setting sun, glaring off binocular glass. They were sighting him. He stood unmoving, watching himself being watched, and after a minute, the binoculars flashed down. Several soldiers started a conversation made of chopping hand motions and bunched shoulders. 

Ocelot imagined the words.

_Why doesn’t he come down to help?_

_Too good for us._

_No, he’s giving us space._

_He doesn’t care about what happened._

_Show some respect, man. Think you could do any better?_

_Fuck YOU, man, it was Intel’s shit info that got Ox and Manta blown up._

The fight broke out right on time. It was brief. Several went down, churning dust into the fire smoke, staining it tan and momentarily obscuring the small melee from view. Ocelot didn’t blame them. They were six klicks from the nearest LZ. Fully kitted with a two hundred pound crate of delicate equipment to manage. Then there was the four hundred unexpected pounds of dead. An impossible equation to solve with the variables at hand. Unless they could heist a vehicle, the hike tomorrow would be a death march.

Ocelot blew air through his nose, disgusted with himself and the whole operation. They should have waited for the goddamned Fulton.

Enough.

He slipped out of the shade and behind the rocks, little more than a louder whisper in the voice of the land. On the other side of the ridge, Afghanistan sprawled in a tumble of harsh wonder. It was a place which insisted on being alive even though the sun and wind wanted it dead. Anything persisting deserved respect, even transient soldiers arriving on choppers with the express intent of killing other transient soldiers driving in trucks. Afghanistan would permit such events, and repay the living with broad sunsets of fire and rose.

It is a beautiful country, despite its difficulties.

A shallow valley lay beyond. Here he would rest while the sky drained of color. The monochrome desert evening would make space. It would open up a seat for him by the cook fire, provide a cold mess tin which he would eventually set aside. It would serve up a long stint on night watch. Morning would come with him still awake, revolvers across his lap, purple beneath his eyes. There would be no more losses, no more mistakes. The soldiers would start to trust him again. 

Maybe.

Ocelot made his way downhill, dried blood stiffening the knees of his pants. Manta’s. He’d known Manta a little. Bright, ready to serve. When he’d kneeled in Manta's blood, Ox had still been alive. That one was a vague, dull photo from a personnel file, a pair of eyes over the black muddle of balaclava fabric. A sniper’s bullet had blurred those unremarkable features into the fan of gore now decorating one side of the crate. Ox’s browning legacy.

Two good men gone, and for what? Miller handled the payouts, not Ocelot. It had better be grand. Enough to keep them running for half a year or more, to buy enough time to help these survivors forget. If it wasn’t, he and Miller were going to have a highly focused discussion around returns. The Boss might still be sleeping, but every decision should be made as if he were there to vet and review. Ocelot didn’t think Miller’s choice here would have passed muster. Reminders would be necessary.

Claws of dehydration were starting to sink into his temples. I need a drink. For any number of reasons. 

A dense strip of green at the bottom of the shallow valley promised water.Ocelot headed towards it, lips thinned by the day’s thirst and the drying evening breeze. Parting the long grass, he found a busy little riot of mountain spring water hurrying across smooth pebbles. In a crouch, he soaked hs blood-drenched gloves until the leather softened and the cold water ran clear between his fingers. He cupped some to his mouth. It tasted faintly of copper. Ox’s or Manta’s? Probably both. 

Something made a noise downstream.

Ocelot froze, one hand suspended and dripping. 

Damn this day to _hell_. It took effort to force a long, slow breath, bringing himself down. Down into his body, past the taste of the blood, through  the punishing glare of the headache, into the creaking of his boots as he rocked for balance at the brook’s edge. Straight through the dull knot aching in his chest, to the where the cold truth lay. Down and down, heart beat slowing, sinking into the sniper’s home where every second was crystal and there was always plenty of time. 

Listen and breathe.

The wind whistled its evening song. Some bird let loose a complicated string of notes. There was a substantial splash upstream followed by the rending of grass. A grunt from a chest at least two-men deep: horse. 

Ocelot rose.  This he could handle.  One half-drawn revolver slid back into its holster. 

He could see it now, just beyond a clump of bushes festooned with tiny yellow flowers. It was a white horse, withers shivering away the day’s last biting flies. Head down, cropping grass with intent, unaware of his presence. Buckles on its broken bridle jingled as it sought the next mouthful of tender blades. Some Afghan’s pride and joy, spoiled more than wives or daughters, driven into the wild by the Russian invasion of the area. That dangling bridle measured its current freedom in hours or days, certainly not weeks.

This horse could solve many problems if he could catch it.

Ocelot had no kit, save for his bandolier and guns. No rope to use as a lasso. Even though the horse was still fat with health, round hindquarters curving the sunset, he could tell by its focused eating that it was feeling the pinch of being wild. It could be lured. He patted himself down for anything to use, careful not to make any noise as he did so. One breast pocket produced a rubble of crumbs: remnants of the morning’s granola bar pulverized by today’s frantic crawling.

It would have to do.

Gloaming poured itself into the valley. A few rare fireflies sewed through the grass in threads of yellow green. Their meanderings textured the space between Ocelot and the horse in a mat of brilliant afterimages which thinned out over the rocks. A few threads drifted back up the hill towards the camp. Ocelot, counting the seconds of the fading light, measured his options. If he was going to do this, it would have to be now.

He stepped towards the animal, leaning forward slightly. Be soft. Softness was easy with animals. This horse did not know anything of Ocelot: his life, what he’d done, or what he could do. It knew nothing of souls hollowed out into weapons, filled with trigger phrases that would turn them into murdering dervishes. It knew nothing of the ropes, the waterboard buckets or the isolation boxes. Of humid rooms with red walls raw from begging throats, sour with secrets spilling like urine from the sight of another pair of pliers. It knew nothing of mistakes, of dead men, or of promises and prices and the myriad permutations of evil in the world.

To this horse, he was pure.

He made a soft kissing noise. “Hey boy.” Ocelot pulled up grass in a measured movement. He raised his hand slowly, holding out the blades. “Got something for you.”

The horse lifted its head, ears rotating. It would not know English but it would know tone. It took a step forward. 

“That’s a good boy.”

Another step. He rustled the grass gently, gauging the animal. Stately and strong, Andalusian, most likely. Valuable. Perhaps enough to even out the cost of the day. Miller would roll his eyes and sigh and grouse over the added cost of horse feed to their operational expenses. Ocelot would take great satisfaction in reminding him that horses had been on the acquisition list from the start, and this one was free. The idea loosened the dour knot in his chest, and the horse, sensing the change, whickered, coming closer.

The was the moment. This was why he was out here and Miller was back at base shuffling papers and getting drunk. Ocelot could be whatever a moment needed. Earlier, he had been invisible death. Then the dismayed and self-recriminatory leader. Now, he was just a man, a quiet source of succor to a lost animal.

Velvet gray lips snatched at the grass he held. He cooed to the horse and pulled back a little. The great head followed. Greedy, missing treats as he’d hoped. The broken bridle’s strap swung just under the left cheek but it was too soon to grab. The horse’s neck was stretched parallel to the ground, muscles straining, feet planted far back. Not ready yet.

More grass, more snatching. This time he let a few blades slide free. The horse took an involuntary step forward to even its balance while it claimed the meager prize. Ocelot let it chew and scrubbed crumbs from his pocket. They made a sorry little pile in the palm of his red glove, but he trusted his first guess. This horse had been quite spoilt and would be anxious to taste any reminders of previous good care, regardless of how spare.

He offered his hand again. The horse gave him both eyes, following tentatively as he stepped backwards. Both of them were out of the grass and heading towards the rocky upslope. Ocelot moved until the horse started to slow, then he allowed the animal to close the final distance on its own. This time, the neck didn’t stretch. The beast came to him with ears pricked and snorting nostrils wide, smelling the sweet honeyed grains now within reach. A shiver went through the body at the first taste, and Ocelot took this moment to stroke the broad, flat cheek with his free hand. No reaction other than continued greed against his palm. He scratched the cheek, keeping his eyes on the searching nose, drifting his touch down until he felt the first leather strap of the broken bridle. 

Words, run them together into a soothing music. “There’s a boy, there you go, how’s that taste? Aren’t you a fine one. You want more, don’t you? All you have to do is carry some things for me. Just a couple things. Small things. You can do that, can’t you?”

He had his fingers under the straps. Lightly now. Don’t spook. Ocelot kept the music of speech flowing, remembering his time in the southwest United States, just a man then too, interested in the ways of the ranch, training for this very moment. Down and down, soft and cool. “Easy, boy. It’s all right.”

Moment of truth.

The bridle’s buckle made a single, bright sound as his grip closed around it. The horse locked up one leg, brown eye glazing. For a moment, Ocelot was sure it was all going sideways, the day finishing itself off in a full-on FUBAR the likes of which he hadn’t seen since his early days in the GRU. There was a small nervous grunt. A shiver of mane. And then, the horse decided. Freedom was less important than treats and the comforting company of men. As the light died, Ocelot found himself being head butted in the chest while his shirt pockets were nibbled. The animal’s touch sparked a warmth in him he seldom felt. His face, stiff with grit and dried sweat, cracked in a rare smile.

“That’s a fine boy. We understand each other, don’t we? Sure we do. Come be a Diamond Dog, how about that?”

The horse blew air and pressed its long forehead against him. Ocelot cradled it, breathing into the softness between the horse’s eyes. It would be good to have a horse on base. Something to focus on, a welcome respite from evaluating kill zone groupings and quality of informants. Something that Miller would have absolutely no interest in. Something that would enjoy his presence, instead of shudder at it.

“Come on home, boy,” he whispered.

The horse made a quiet sound of agreement and followed him, without complaint, back to camp.

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I wrote to keep up my daily practice, inspired by this image on DeviantArt. https://www.deviantart.com/reiko-himezono-lirka/art/Revolver-Shalashaska-Ocelot-Cavalier-Seul-731615246
> 
> Thank you Reiko Himezono-Lirka for this lovely piece of art of my favorite MGSV character.


End file.
